Springfield Officials Have Vision

April 04, 1988|by DAN FRICKER, The Morning Call

Imagine Springfield Township 20 years from now.The area around Zion Hill is suburban, with tract housing developments dotting the landscape, but elsewhere the township retains its rural character. Most homes occupy 3-acre lots, a greenbelt straddles Cook's Creek, which is alive with trout, and farmers still earn a living from the soil.

That's the vision township supervisors and Planning Commission will have in mind this month when they consider two ordinances to govern construction in a municipality where many fear the fast track of development is threatening to overtake the slow step of rural charm.

On April 12, the supervisors are expected to amend the township subdivision ordinance to require builders to study the effects of new wells or, in the case of large developments, construct community water systems and conduct well pumping tests aimed at preserving existing wells.

But more importantly, the Planning Commission is expected to approve a final version of the township's new comprehensive development plan April 27. The comprehensive plan, a blueprint for development throughout the township, will then go to the supervisors for a vote.

If passed, it would be the township's first new comprehensive plan in 20 years and could affect the way the township is developed well into the 21st century.

David Redlawsk is chairman of the Planning Commission, which has worked a year on the new comprehensive plan. He said its intent is to balance the township's rural character against the two-way development push south from Interstate 78 and north from central Bucks.

"The bottom line of this comprehensive plan is that some development is going to happen in Springfield Township because of pressure of I-78 and also because of the growth in Upper Bucks County," Redlawsk said Friday.

As a blueprint, the comprehensive plan is a broad outline for development. The specifics will be contained in the new zoning ordinance the Planning Commission will begin drafting next month. The zoning ordinance is expected to reach the supervisors by the end of the year.

One of the principal points is a call to replace the township's rural- residential zoning with a larger agricultural zoning district encompassing most of the eastern and central parts of the township, where the best soils and the majority of the farms are found. The agricultural district would be the township's single largest zoning district.

To protect farming, homes in the agricultural district would have to be built on lots with a minimum area of 3 acres, an increase over the 2-acre minimum lot size in the rural-residential zoning.

Clustered single homes also would be permitted, but only if 65-70 percent of the property remains open, meaning only 33 or 34 homes could be built on a 100-acre property. Besides preserving open space, the clustering option would create buffers and allow farming to continue on the open land, Redlawsk said.

The comprehensive plan also calls for restricting development along Cook's Creek in an effort to preserve a waterway so pristine that trout still breed in it. The creek travels west-to-east across the township before flowing into Durham Township on its way to the Delaware River.

The aim of the restriction is to create a greenbelt along the creek in the areas not already subdivided for development, Redlawsk said. The restrictions include not permitting the creek's floodplains to be used in calculating lot sizes.

The comprehensive plan calls for restricting growth in limestone regions of the township, the largest of which is the Springtown area. "We already have septic problems in that area and some parts of the area already have problems finding water," Redlawsk said.

The comprehensive plan channels much of the development expected from the construction of I-78 into the area surrounding the village of Zion Hill. The plan calls for creation of a planned residential zoning district that would accommodate multi-family housing as well as single homes. Zion Hill is near Upper Saucon Township, making it likely that public sewers could be extended from Lehigh County, Redlawsk said.

A second planned residential zoning district, now around Pleasant Valley, is deleted in the new comprehensive plan because the village is in a limestone area, Redlawsk said.

As for water, an important issue in a township that relies exclusively on wells, the comprehensive plan calls for developers to study the effects of drilling new wells. Springfield would be urged to study the availability of groundwater throughout the township.